learning response stimulus procedures

Conditioning is a term used in psychology to refer to two specific types of associative learning as well as to the operant and classical conditioning procedures which produce that learning. Very generally, operant conditioning involves administering or withholding reinforcements based on the performance of a targeted response, and classical conditioning involves pairing a stimulus that naturally elicits a response with one that does not until the second stimulus elicits a response like the first. Both of these procedures enabled the scientific study of associative learning, or the forming of connections between two or more stimuli. The goal of conditioning research is to discover basic laws of learning and memory in animals and humans.

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The systematic study of conditioning began with the Russian physiologist Ivan P. Pavlov. Working in the late 1800s, Pavlov developed the general procedures and terminology for studying classical conditioning wherein he could reliably and objectively study the conditioning of reflexes to various environmental stimuli. Pavlov initially used a procedure wherein every few minutes a hungry dog was give…

Operant and classical conditioning have many similarities but there are important differences in the nature of the response and of the reinforcement. In operant conditioning, the reinforcer's presentation or withdrawal depends on performance of the targeted response, whereas in classical conditioning the reinforcement (the unconditional stimulus) occurs regardless of the organism's r…

How findings from conditioning studies relate to learning is an important question. But first we must define learning. Psychologists use the term learning in a slightly different way than it is used in everyday language. For most psychologists, learning at its most general is evidenced by changes in behavior due to experience. In traditional theories of conditioning learning is seen in the strengt…

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